The invention relates to document reproduction machines and particularly to methods and apparatus for such machines which precondition photoconductors or other forms of image transfer areas for maintaining high-quality copies.
As shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,588,242, an organic-type of photoconductor can be coated on a flexible member. The flexible member, i.e., a wide tape, is then incremented over a carrier such that as the photoconductor quality decreases, a new photoconductor area can be automatically incremented to an image transfer area. In this sense, a new image transfer area is placed in an operational position, i.e., is in a position to transfer images from a source to a copy.
In the manufacture of such organic photoconductors, certain vehicles are used in the coating process. Such vehicles include an oil-type material which can leave a residue. Such residue can cause graining and other imperfections in copies made on fresh or unused photoconductors. Such decreased copy quality is unsatisfactory in the commercial marketplace. Accordingly, after a new image area has been transferred to an operational position, some means must be provided to condition the photoconductor such that high-quality copies are always produced in a document reproduction machine. This preconditioning should be achieved with minimal interference with the normal day-to-day document reproduction activities performed by the machine.